Fall election season means an endless stream of political ads. Political ads are like noses: every candidate’s got one, and they usually smell. Enter Governor Tina Kotek’s ad about Senator Christine Drazan, which includes a bizarre claim that “Christine Drazan voted to defund the Oregon Health Plan.
As a longtime lobbyist and legislative staffer, my first reaction was, “How on earth did Speaker Julie Fahey let a bill to defund Medicaid get to the House floor?” For those unfamiliar with the Oregon Capitol’s inner workings, the presiding officer of each legislative chamber, in this case the Speaker of the House of Representatives, has virtually unlimited power over which bills are actually voted on by legislators. The Speaker can choose unilaterally whether or not a bill is voted on at all, and if a legislator like Drazan is voting on it, then it means that the Democratic leadership believed there were enough votes to pass the proposal. So when did the Democratic Party of Oregon decide to obliterate Medicaid, and how did Governor Kotek become so out of touch with her own party?
The claim itself is deceiving. Speaker Fahey, though immensely further to the right on immigration than her Democratic colleagues, is lock step with the Governor and Oregon Democrats on the subject of Medicaid funding. Oregon Health Plan, the Beaver State’s implementation of a federal program to provide healthcare for low-income workers, covers 1/3 of Oregon residents and half of Oregon children. There is no political majority in Oregon that favors reducing healthcare funding for children, nor a significant minority. So why did Speaker Fahey believe there were enough votes for a bill to defund the Oregon Health Plan?
The simple answer is that there were not enough votes to defund the Oregon Health Plan because, shocker, there was no bill to defund the Oregon Health Plan. Even if there was, Speaker Fahey would not have allowed a floor vote, nor would there have been enough votes in the House to bring it to the floor for a vote. The actual legislation in question was about extending existing taxes set to expire in 2026 to 2032. One of the extended taxes was a tax on Medicaid funds doled out to OHP providers.
Oregon’s Medicaid program uniquely administers healthcare through local entities called community care organizations, or CCO’s. The State sends both federal and State funding to the CCO’s, then taxes a portion of the mixed federal and State funds that CCO’s receive to increase the amount of State-provided funding for Medicaid on paper which then increases the amount of money the federal government is obligated to match. It causes a recursive revenue churn that is managed by the Oregon Health Authority, an agency so invested in Beaver State healthcare that its director works part-time in California as a college instructor for Stanford University. OHA Director Sejal Hathi told The Lund Report that working part-time seeing hospital patients in California is important because it keeps her “grounded” in her work overseeing all over Oregon’s hospital patients. I suppose to better manage Elgin’s Hu-Na-Ha RV Park, Director Hathi would recommend I stay grounded cleaning bathrooms at a campground in Vermont as a side gig.
State Representative E. Werner Reschke, one of the most jovial public servants with whom I have interacted in the Capitol, described his opposition to the Medicaid revenue bill after noting that over 50% of the patients at a hospital in his district are covered by the Oregon Health Plan. This was not an old man yells at cloud moment, as the image of a crotchety conservative grumbling that people need to take more responsibility for themselves appears nowhere in the floor speech video. Rep. Reschke reveals that the Office of Legislative Counsel recommended violating the Oregon State Constitution’s mandate of a 3/5 majority to keep the Medicaid tax in place. While nobody likes taxes, and other taxes in the bill will continue to be drivers of high healthcare costs in Oregon, defunding life-saving medical treatment for children was on nobody’s mind on February 27, 2025. Recommending that the Oregon House of Representatives break the law to pay for child healthcare was a stupid prologue for a bill that needed 36 votes to pass in a chamber where the majority party already had 36 seats. While Christine Drazan did not file a vote explanation for her NO vote on HB 2010, she and Rep. Reschke were joined by 13 colleagues who stood by the rule of law, not against healthcare for children.
Healthcare funding is arcane, but Governor Kotek is not trusting her constituents to understand the mechanisms behind it. She is also hoping that cheap shots regarding healthcare for Oregon children masks what Oregon Public Broadcasting called “a top priority for the governor and the Democratic leadership in the Legislature.” Oregon Democrats had the votes to pass their taxes legally, but they went out of their way to claim they had the power to pass these taxes illegally. Voters should question why their government thinks they need to trip over themselves to break the law to provide healthcare for kids when they can keep children out of medical debt without breaking the law. Maybe spending time in California hospitals is not keeping Oregon healthcare regulators as grounded as they think.
Editor’s Note
Right Now Oregon, LLC President Alex McHaddad is the City Administrator of Elgin. Nothing in this post reflects a policy position or editorial stance of the City of Elgin. McHaddad is also a sustaining member of Oregon Public Broadcasting.
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